Herhold: Willow Glen porch theft shows effect of police reductions

By her own admission, Jackie Copple can be firmly assertive. As a senior marketing consultant at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, she doesn't let people roll over her.

So when Copple found out that a witness had spotted the thieves who stole a package from her elderly mother's Willow Glen porch, she wasn't about to let it be forgotten.

The story that unfolded has no heroes or villains. It does tell you something about the battle over police resources in a financially pinched San Jose.

Copple's mother, Barbara, 93, has lived in the same large house on Cherry Avenue for 60 years. Barbara's husband, Jack, was a major builder and civic booster before his death.

The theft was not a big one. Barbara Copple's granddaughter had sent her a couple of paperbacks via Amazon.com.

But a witness named Jeremy -- at his request, I've left off his last name -- was driving down Cherry when he spotted a green Jeep Cherokee slow down in front of the house on Friday, Dec. 21.

Jeremy saw the Cherokee's passenger -- he isn't sure whether it was a man or woman -- jump out and grab a package from the Copple porch. Jeremy followed and got a license number.

When Jackie Copple heard about this -- Jeremy had sent a note to the neighbor email list -- she called the San Jose police dispatcher around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 22.

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"She said, 'Call back tomorrow,' '' Jackie remembers. "I said, 'All I want to do is give you a license plate number.' She started talking about resources.''

Jackie called back around 10 p.m., and this time, with a new shift, a dispatcher sent out two officers. One of them, "a good-looking Italian guy'' by Jackie's recollection, spent an hour at the house talking about Willow Glen and the short-handedness of the force.

I couldn't reach that officer, although the police acknowledge that low-level crimes are given less priority than violent crimes. But the talk wasn't the whole story. The second officer went to interview Jeremy that same night.

"He and I talked for a good hour or so,'' Jeremy told me. "He told me that if he could track these guys, we would be in touch. I think they took it very seriously.''

What's to be learned from this little tale? Well, first, the squeaky wheel principle: Jackie says she got attention after getting a little angry.

The officer's point about being short-handed, however, is correct. San Jose once had 1,400 officers. It now has just more than 1,000, with 930 available for street duty.

In a situation like that, some property crimes will go un-investigated. The police have to give precedence to violent crimes. And there are plenty of those. In 2012, there were 46 homicides, a 20-year record.

Yet I know from working in a downsized environment that manpower pressures don't shape every moment. If there is a good guy here, it is probably the officer who took time to interview Jeremy. "He stepped up,'' Jackie said.

We can hope that someone is able to make the case: Mail theft is too prevalent, particularly at holiday season. And this is no an isolated case.

"To me, this is a microcosm of what's going on,'' said Jim Copple, Jackie's brother. "You see the heavyweights -- the unions or the mayor -- battling it out in public. But this is how it's affecting people.''